April 8th, 2006
What’s a gastro-library?
It’s almost a year to the day since I lamented the closing of the Winding Stair, a wonderful café/book shop hybrid that is much missed. In the April edition of Food and Wine Magazine, there is heartening news. Apparently The Thomas Read Group have bought the venue and plan to re-open it as a ‘gastro-library’. (Won’t that get messy?)
Cue Homer Simpson-style salivating from me…
April 8th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
Sounds fantastic to me too:)
April 9th, 2006 at 6:48 am
Just drove past there yesterday - hadn’t realised it was closed-closed (as opposed to closed-not-yet-open). I never went there that often, but everytime I did, I always said that I should go there more.
We went to a gastro-library type place in Berlin. Can’t remember the name, but it was very close to the Brandenburg Gate. It had great decor (floor-to-ceiling bookcases, leather upholstered reading chairs, library lamps) but it didn’t seem like you’d be allowed to actually touch the books.
April 9th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Is it just me (not passing judgement on this venture by the way) or does the prefix “gastro” put one in mind more of gastroenteritis than gastronomy?
Whenever I see the word “gastro-pub” I think baskets of bile inducing cocktail sausages and limp chips.
I’d choose a more enticing term myself.
April 10th, 2006 at 8:57 am
If it’s a real gastro-library, Dublin will be blessed.
April 18th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
I thought Starbucks bought the building? I’m getting out of touch…
April 20th, 2006 at 10:03 pm
So, something original, distinctive and with character gets “replaced” by an imititation, which will be better-run but soulless and three times as expensive.
Time to break out the champagne, indeed… I would use the “c” word if it weren’t in such common parlance these days.
April 20th, 2006 at 10:21 pm
Rather a gastro-library (whatever that may be) than Starbucks…